Once more Basil flushed with delight, for his cousin’s appreciation was not one to be disdained. “Isn’t she?” he said, with almost boyish pride. “But”—with a look of contrition and apology so sudden that it was almost ludicrous—“tell me, Régis, has the ‘Gamin’ really been ill?”
“Why?” questioned Plenhöel, utterly forgetting the excuse made for her non-appearance at the wedding, and instantly alarmed. “Don’t you think she looks well?” All thought of banter had suddenly left him, and he involuntarily took a step toward the place where Marguerite was attending to her duties, presenting one guest after another to Laurence, and that with amazing ease for a girl not yet seventeen.
“She looks adorable, as usual,” Basil said, slowly. “That goes without saying; but I don’t know, she seems elongated somehow ... not thinner ... not taller, either; just a trifle more ethereal; more like a dream.” He paused and fixed his deep eyes on his little comrade—as he had used to style her. “I left a sheaf of sun-rays, and find one made of moonbeams—no, a moonglade—that’s the word—yes, that’s the exact impression she gives now—a quiet, restful, lovely moonglade.”
“You’re getting positively lyrical,” “Antinoüs” retorted, impatiently. “A moonglade, indeed! Why, she’s as full of life as a two-year-old, and as jolly as a sandpiper. Idiot!” he was thinking to himself. “He’s so absorbed by his new toy that he can’t see straight any longer. Decidedly a man of one idea at a time!” And he invited his cousin to come and have a cigar in the smoking-room, with indifferently concealed irritation.
Meanwhile Laurence was enjoying to the full the success which she had encountered wherever she had gone since her marriage. From beneath her long, curving lashes she eagerly watched the effect she was producing, and her rather too small ears—a sure sign of selfishness—adorned with priceless pearls, were quick to catch the compliments upon her beauty that Marguerite was receiving.
“Délicieuse! Ravissante! Mais, elle est jolie comme un amour, votre cousine!” It was intensely enjoyable, this long-awaited manna bedewing après-coup the desert of her past life, so bitter and so humiliating when this ambitious woman looked back at it, now that she had arrived! No more pronunciamientos from Aunt Elizabeth, no more charity from splenetic Uncle Bob—ever grumpy when not aboard his beloved yacht. No! Laurence was her own mistress now, with power and wealth unspeakable at her command. She was beautiful; she was not quite twenty; at her feet knelt a man no less her lover because she was his by the imperial word of church and state—indeed, rather more so—being given Basil’s peculiarly chivalrous nature, his blind passion for her. She had reached to-night the very apogee of all her earthly desires, and therefore that was naturally the moment for her to feel the blood crowd back upon her heart as a voice not heard for seeming ages spoke suddenly at her shoulder.
“Permit me, madame, to recall myself to your memory.” The words were irreproachable, so was the attitude of the tall, good-looking soldier bowing low before her, but she could willingly have annihilated him then and there.
“Neville!” she cried, before recovering her presence of mind. “Captain Moray! How—how are you here?”
“As naturally as you are yourself—madame. I, too, have the honor of being counted a friend in this hospitable house. Moreover, I have just been appointed Military Attaché to the British Embassy here.”
She winced. Good Heavens! What could they mean in England by sending this young man, of all people in the world, to Paris, where she, the Princess Palitzin, intended to make her home for several months out of every year!